- Jan 20, 2001
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yahoooo
Instead Bushistas created a program that will drive drug spending higher.
Unlike the rose-colored crowd crowing about GDP outgrowing the debt . . . there's no doubt that healthcare spending will outgrow GDP unless we take significant action.WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Health-care spending is outpacing the growth of the American economy and will consume 20 percent of U.S. gross domestic product (
GDP) by 2015, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said on Wednesday.
Now remember much of that expansion is GOVERNMENT paying for prescription drugs!U.S. spending on prescription drugs was forecast to soar to $446 billion in 2015, up from $188 billion in 2004, according to the study, which is issued annually. However, the average annual spending rise for prescription drugs over the coming decade was seen at 8.2 percent, lower than the projection made in last year's report due to the government's new Medicare Part D prescription drug program.
BS . . . the way to temper growth is to improve the quality of all medications, remove low utility drugs from the market, incentivize the use of generics and high utility drugs, and collectively bargain (Medicare)."The prescription drug plans were able to negotiate discounts and rebates that came in larger than we thought, and this has helped mitigate what drug spending would have been," said John Poisal, deputy director of the CMS' health statistics group. "It doesn't mean drug spending won't continue to grow, but it has helped to temper that growth."
Instead Bushistas created a program that will drive drug spending higher.
I think my wallet this flinched.Medicare spending will spike by 25 percent in 2006 due to the new prescription drug benefit, then average 7.5 percent growth between 2008 and 2015.